


Sacrifice

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, BAMF Bucky Barnes, Clintasha BrOTP, F/M, M/M, Mistakes were made, Urban Fantasy, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 01:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17540081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Clint really doesn't go looking for trouble. Trouble finds him with no effort whatsoever.------Bucky looked back at him, and his lips crooked and his eyes turned dark.“Nice abs,” he drawled.“That’s all you’re going to say? ‘Nice abs’?”Bucky’s eyes dragged over the length of Clint’s naked body. And yeah, he had been naked for the last really fucked-up however long, but now, with Bucky’s eyes on him, Clint really felt it.“Well, it’s cold and your girlfriend tried to make you into a human sacrifice. I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”It took Clint almost a solid fifteen seconds. But then he got it.And despite a desperate urge to cover himself, Clint didn’t. Instead, he glared.“I meant about the fact that I was almost murdered?”--------





	Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Angrydollface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angrydollface/gifts).



> All the thanks to Ro for beta reading.
> 
> Wishing you a VERY HAPPY DAY OF BIRTH Angrydollface!!!
> 
> \---------  
> \---------

  
  
  


By the time Clint made it home from work, it was nine at night and he was exhausted.

  


Which, all things considered, was some kind of pathetic. He usually took the closing shift at the bar - starting work at nine and staying until last call at four in the morning, and then cleaning up the place. But Kate had had a  _ date, _ and she had done the thing with her eyes and her face and used her  _ words, _ and Clint had, of course, switched shifts with her. 

  


It meant he had worked from noon until eight, and while the tips hadn’t been as bad as he had expected, only having four hours of sleep that morning had been  _ exactly _ as awful as he had thought it would be.

  


Plus, walking home this close to nightfall in the summer meant it was still hot, meant that the heat baked into the pavement all day was still hazily floating up, and Clint’s t-shirt clung to him uncomfortably for the entire two-mile walk home.

  


It wasn’t the worst day he had ever had - heat, lack of sleep and fucked-up schedule aside - but then Clint unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside.

  


There were candles everywhere. On the tables and bookshelves - hell, even on top of the television and the cardboard boxes he still hadn’t unpacked even after being in the apartment for three years. In the living room, there were even candles on the floor, shaped into some kind of circle with points.

  


They were all lit, flickering amber light into the otherwise dark apartment, and making the place smell almost overwhelmingly of sage.

  


Sitting on the couch, legs curled under her and a book in her lap, Penny sat. The candles cast her in a golden light that made her even more gorgeous that she normally was, and, not for the first time, Clint wondered what the hell she saw in  _ him _ .

  


Standing in the doorway, Clint froze.

  


_ Aw, fuck. _

  


Had he forgotten an anniversary? They had been dating for… five months? Five months. Ish. Surely, that wasn’t anniversary territory?

  


Birthday?

  


No, she was an Aries, and he didn’t actually remember what day her birthday was, but Penny had programmed it into his phone and he had gotten her flowers and a bottle of wine and tickets to a Broadway play for that.

  


_ His _ birthday?

  


Clint took a moment to berate himself for being so fucking stupid that he thought that it could possibly be his own birthday.

  


It definitely wasn’t a special date, then, and-

  


Fuck.

  


Maybe Penny had forgotten Clint had switched shifts with Kate, and all of this… wasn’t for him?

  


But that was fucked-up. Penny had her own apartment, and if she was going to do some kind of elaborate, romantic behind-his-back fuck, then she would surely do it  _ behind _ his back?

  


At a complete loss, Clint cleared his throat and Penny finally looked up from her book.

  


She smiled at him, sharp and wicked and looking like she was ready to devour him.

  


And seriously, how the fuck did  _ Clint _ get to be around someone this incredible?

  


“Hey, babe,” he said, and finally stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind himself. “Is it… uh… Really romantic set-up you’ve got here.”

  


Penny set her book down and rose from the couch. She was wearing black leggings and a black t-shirt that Clint was pretty sure was his own. She looked both comfortable and sexy, and Clint reached out to pull her into his arms.

  


She kissed him on the mouth, and then nuzzled along his stubbled jaw and towards his ear.

  


“I wasn’t aiming for romantic,” she said, laughter in her voice.

  


Clint didn’t really get the joke but…

  


“Still, looks great,” he said, unable to look away from a candle that was precariously close to the curtains by the fire-escape window.

  


“Mmm. Wine?”

  


“Sure,” Clint answered, distracted by the fear of his apartment - hell, the whole building - going up in flames. He let Penny go, and she drifted towards the kitchen while he tried to be subtle about checking the perimeter of the living room and scooting candles away from anything that looked flammable.

  


“Relax,” Penny laughed at him as she came back into the room and handed Clint a glass of red wine.

  


He wasn’t the biggest fan - he didn’t, as a general rule, drink all that much. Growing up with an alcoholic father and working as a bartender pretty much meant that Clint was more than happy to spend his life sober. But Penny liked to have a glass of wine with him sometimes, and, well, Clint was happy to do anything Penny wanted to do.

  


The wine stained Penny’s lips dark, and Clint had a hard time looking anywhere else.

  


“How was work today?” he asked her.

  


Unlike Clint, Penny had a real job, a normal job, working nine to five and doing good in the world.

  


“Mm. Boring. Same as always.”

  


Clint took another sip of his wine. 

  


It must be something different than what Penny usually bought. It was sharper, a little earthier, than the Pinots she usually favored.

  


“Any word on that promotion?” he asked.

  


Penny huffed and set her wine glass down on the coffee table.

  


“No. I’m sure I won’t get it, though. It’s- Oh, it’s complicated, Clint.”

  


He opened his mouth to ask her to try to explain, but she tapped his glass and arched an eyebrow at him.

  


Nevermind that her own glass was still mostly full. Clint sighed and dutifully took another sip, a too-large one that had him coughing and struggling to swallow.

  


Penny rolled her eyes, corners of her lips tilting upwards.

  


“Besides,” she said, and slid her hands up his shoulders, “I didn’t go to all this trouble just to talk about my day at work, Clint.”

  


He choked on a laugh, and she took pity on him and took away the wine glass, setting it down beside her own.

  


“So what  _ did _ you go to all this trouble for?” he asked, tried to smirk, but the wine was still burning in his throat and nose, and it probably looked more like a grimace.

  


“You, of course,” she said.

  


“I- uh- thank you?” 

  


Clint had admitted, when they were up late one night and he was sick and they had watched  _ Say Anything, _ that he was a sucker for big romantic gestures. But Penny had just rolled her eyes and claimed that kind of crap only happened in movies.

  


Then again, she had said she wasn’t aiming for romance.

  


Which meant Clint still had  _ no _ idea what was going on.

  


“You’re wearing too much,” Penny said, and plucked at his shirt. “I need you naked.”

  


And, well, Clint might not know what was going on currently, but he knew what usually happened when Penny told him to get naked.

  


So he promptly obeyed, shucking his boots and shirt, then his jeans and boxers and socks, until he was standing in front of her naked. Except for the bandage around his right wrist and the bandaid on his nose.

  


Penny smirked at him. She hadn’t moved an inch, hadn’t taken off a single thing.

  


“I do appreciate the way you listen to me,” she sighed wistfully.

  


“I try?” Clint said, knowing he wasn’t always great at it. 

  


“I know you do,” Penny assured him, and ran her nails across his scalp, tugging his hair until Clint groaned and angled his head back. Penny laughed and nipped at the taut flesh of his throat. “I’m going to miss that.”

  


“Going to- Oh, fuck. You’re breaking up with me, aren’t you?”

  


Clint had known this day was coming, sooner rather than later, because this day  _ always _ came. Good sex only took him so far, and he had been assured by eight of his last nine exes that he was a human disaster not worth the trouble.

  


Penny laughed.

  


“Oh, Clint.”

  


“This is just- this is all for breakup sex, isn’t it?” 

  


It made sense now. Penny didn’t like grand gestures. Didn’t go for the romance things. But this - nice candles and one last fuck? That was her style.

  


“No, unfortunately, no sex.” She sighed and ran her hands down his bare chest, to his thighs and then to his groin. She petted his cock, a sad little smile on her face. “Can’t go confusing the spirit world like that.”

  


“The- the what?”

  


Penny didn’t answer him. Instead, she pushed him backwards.

  


Clint stumbled, his legs feeling heavy and oddly disjointed, and when he flailed his arms out for balance, it felt like the whole world was suddenly tilting.

  


“Careful,” Penny chided.

  


She guided him down onto his back, but even laying still, it felt like the world was spinning.

  


Clint squeezed his eyes closed.

  


That didn’t help. 

  


It just heightened his other senses, until he could feel the too-fast thrum of his pulse, until the scent of sage was choking him, until Penny’s nails dragging over his torso felt like the sharp prick of a knife and-

  


Clint opened his eyes.

  


That  _ was _ the sharp prick of a knife, dragging over his chest and cutting into the skin and-

  


Clint tried to sit up, tried to roll, tried to  _ move _ and- 

  


And he couldn’t.

  


Penny was kneeling beside him, Clint’s limbs spread wide, inside the weird pointy circle of candles, and she was  _ carving into his chest with a knife. _

  


“Penny?”

  


“Shh. Don’t distract me, or I’ll get this incantation wrong.”

  


“You’ll- what? Penny, what the hell is going on?”

  


She rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration.

  


“Clint. Seriously. I need you to shut the fuck up. I’ve never sacrificed a human before, and if I mess this up, I’ll end up summoning the goddess of… body odor or something, instead of the goddess of wealth.”

  


“The- Penny- Wh-”

  


She slapped a hand over his mouth.

  


“Clint. Shut. Up.”

  


He screamed under her hand, and she made a frustrated sound and dropped the knife in her other hand.

  


Clint tried to push her away, but he couldn’t move at  _ all _ . It felt like his entire body was being weighed down, as if he was completely restrained, even though there was nothing holding him in place at all except for Penny’s hand on his mouth.

  


She pulled out a roll of duct tape from under the couch.

  


_ Fuck _ .

  


He had been looking for that - he had spent two hours looking for that yesterday. Had it seriously been under the couch?

  


She slapped a piece of tape over his mouth, so fast that all Clint got out was an angry  _ Mmph _ before he was silenced.

  


Penny sighed.

  


“There. Now. Try to think calm, soothing thoughts. Maybe go back to closing your eyes?” she recommended. “This is going to hurt a lot. No getting around that. Sorry.”

  


She didn’t sound all that sorry.

  


Penny picked the knife back up and started cutting into his chest again.

  


Clint shouted behind the tape.

  


Penny started to sing.

  


He had no idea what the words were. They weren’t in English or Russian or Spanish, the only three languages he knew, and-

  


The door to the apartment burst open in an explosion of blue light and heat.

  


Penny turned to glare at the two white men who burst through the doorway.

  


Clint screamed at them behind the tape.

  


One, tall and built and blond-haired and holding a round… trash can lid? Threw it at Penny.

  


It didn’t reach her, instead  _ clanking _ against the air and falling to the ground just outside the circle of candles.

  


“Fuck,” the blond-haired man growled.

  


The other man, just as tall and built but dark-haired and grim-looking, advanced towards them and drew a gun.

  


Penny laughed.

  


“You don’t frighten me with your stupid toys.”

  


“Ma’am,” the blond-haired man walked close enough to pick up his trash can lid. “We’re agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Super-Human Investigation, Enforcement and Litigation Department, and I need you to put down the knife and release the null.”

  


Penny changed her grip on the knife and pushed it deeper into Clint’s skin, just below his rib cage, until the point of it was pressing against bone, and Clint screamed yet again. 

  


_ Fuck, that  _ hurt.

  


“I don’t think so,” Penny hummed. 

  


“Let him go,” the dark-haired man snapped, “and I won’t kill you.”

  


“Bucky,” the blond-haired man groaned, “we can’t  _ kill _ her. We’re supposed to take her in and-”

  


“What part of good-cop, bad-cop do you not understand, Steve?” 

  


“I  thought- We’re doing that  _ now _ ?”

  


“For the love of fuck, Rogers, do you even-”

  


Clint screamed again, hoping to draw attention back to himself and the whole getting  _ stabbed _ thing.

  


“Look,” Steve or Rogers or whatever said, “ma’am, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Doesn’t matter to us. But we  _ are _ going to break your circle before you summon whatever you’re summoning, and you will be arrested. If you drop the circle willingly and let the null go, you won’t be in nearly as much trouble as you will be if you kill him and force us to-”

  


Clint screamed again.

  


No. No, that was  _ not _ an option.

  


The dark-haired man - Bucky? What the fuck kind of name was  _ that _ ? - rolled his eyes at Clint.

  


“Pipe down,” he growled at Clint.

  


Clint glared at him.

  


“If you could break the circle, you would have done so already,” Penny sniffed. She turned back to Clint with a triumphant smirk. “And as soon as I summon Anuket, you won’t be able to stop me.”

  


Bucky groaned.

  


“Really? Another one. Jesus. Third one this week. Look, I don’t know what kind of white-girl lean in shit you hedge witches are reading about Anuket, but she is  _ not _ going to help you get your shit together or whatever it is you think she’s gonna do. She-”

  


“You don’t understand anything!” Penny screamed, and pulled the knife out of Clint.

  


He sucked in a ragged, painful breath.

  


Penny moved the knife to his throat, pressing the sharp point to the same place where she had kissed him when he walked through the door.

  


Fuck. That was fucked-up. That was so not okay.

  


“Steve,” Bucky said.

  


“Yeah, yeah. I just- I hate doing it this way.”

  


“And I hate getting out of bed in the morning,” Bucky growled, “but here we are.”

  


Clint had no idea what they were talking about, or what their plan was for getting  _ him _ out of this without dying, but less talking would be so very, very appreciated. 

  


Less talking, more saving.

  


Penny’s fingers tightened on the knife handle.

  


And then, once again, there was an explosion of heat and blue light.

  


It felt like all of the air was sucked out of the room, every single candle flickering as though in a windstorm and then gutted, plunging the room into darkness and-

  


Clint felt the weight lift from his body instantly, as soon as the darkness descended, and he rolled and  _ kicked _ .

  


Penny grunted, and then shouted, and then-

  


The apartments lights snapped on.

  


Clint squinted against the bright, harsh light, and tried to force himself not to panic about the pain he was feeling or the  _ blood all over his chest _ .

  


Penny was halfway across the room, held by Bucky, who had his right arm around her waist and his left arm - his  _ metal left arm _ \- around her throat.

  


_ What the fuck? _

  


Steve pulled out something from a pocket that looked like some kind of medieval version of handcuffs, heavy and crudely-made.

  


Penny struggled in Bucky’s arms as Steve approached, but as soon as he had the handcuffs around her wrists, she slumped, as if all the fight had gone out of her.

  


“You got him?” Steve asked Bucky, jerking a thumb towards Clint.

  


Bucky sighed.

  


“Yeah. Sure. Take the job with less paperwork.” He pushed Penny into Steve’s arms. Steve grinned at him, slung the trash can lid onto his back, and dragged Penny out of the apartment.

  


Leaving Clint in a puddle of his own blood, naked, mouth taped shut, with Bucky.

  


Bucky walked past Clint and down the hallway towards the bathroom and bedroom, ignoring him completely and rattling around in Clint’s apartment while Clint  _ bled everywhere _ and-

  


He came back into the room with a towel.

  


“This ain’t gonna feel great,” Bucky said, and knelt down beside Clint.

  


Clint glared, opened his mouth to point out that  _ nothing _ felt great at the moment, and abruptly realized his mouth was still taped shut.

  


He lifted a hand to pull the tape off, but Bucky stopped him.

  


“Just, uh, leave that there for a sec. Don’t want your neighbors to think you’re getting murdered.”

  


Which was the least comforting thing Clint had  _ ever _ heard and-

  


Bucky did something with his metal hand, pressing it against Clint’s chest, fingers splayed wide and cold on Clint’s skin and- 

  


Clint screamed again.

  


_ Fucking fucking fuck that fucking hurt. _

  


\------

  


He must have passed out.

  


When he opened his eyes again, there was a couch cushion under his head and Bucky was sitting beside him, browsing Twitter on his phone.

  


The towel was bloody and balled-up next to Clint, and his chest- 

  


His chest was blood and cut-free. 

  


Completely healed, not even a scar or a trace of what Penny had done to him.

  


“What the fuck?”

  


Clint realized the tape was off when the words came out as more than just an angry garble.

  


“Oh, good. Nap time’s over.” Bucky put his phone away and turned his attention to Clint. “You feel lightheaded?”

  


“Uh… no?”

  


“Weird tingles anywhere?”

  


“No.”

  


“Do you smell lemons?”

  


“No.”

  


“Taste nutmeg?”

  


“I… don’t think so?”

  


Bucky looked at him intently.

  


“I’m not really sure what nutmeg tastes like.”

  


Bucky rolled his eyes, opened his mouth to maybe explain, but then shook his head.

  


“Okay. Well, you probably won’t die.”

  


“I  _ probably  _ won’t die?” Clint pushed himself up and glared. “I was almost- Dude, what the  _ fuck _ just happened to me?”

  


Bucky looked back at him, and his lips crooked and his eyes turned dark.

  


“Nice abs,” he drawled.

  


“That’s all you’re going to say? ‘Nice abs’?”

  


Bucky’s eyes dragged over the length of Clint’s naked body. And yeah, he had been naked for the last really fucked-up however long, but now, with Bucky’s eyes on him, Clint really felt it.

  


“Well, it’s cold and your girlfriend tried to make you into a human sacrifice. I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  


It took Clint almost a solid fifteen seconds. But then he got it.

  


And despite a desperate urge to cover himself, Clint didn’t. Instead, he glared.

  


“I meant about the fact that I was almost murdered?”

  


“Oh. Sure.” Bucky pulled out a notebook from the back pocket of his stupidly-tight jeans. “You want me to take a statement?”

  


Clint frowned. The way that the guy’s partner, Rogers, had hustled Penny out of the apartment with zero focus on Clint made him start to wonder just what S.H.I.E.L.D. actually did with the whole investigation, enforcement and litigation parts of their name.

  


“Are you asking me to press charges?”

  


Bucky’s lips tilted again, as if Clint had told a familiar joke that he really liked.

  


“Sure. You think we can get her on the shitty pronunciation of her incantations, the attempt to summon a flood goddess or-”

  


“Attempted murder, maybe?” Clint interrupted.

  


“Mm.” Bucky lifted his eyebrows. “So, you want to walk into the police station and say ‘hey, my girlfriend lit a bunch of candles and tried to kill me’.”

  


“That’s exactly what happened!” Clint protested. “She had a knife and-”

  


Bucky nodded in agreement with Clint’s silent realization.

  


“Right. Stabbed you with it? Where’s the proof?”

  


Because, of course, there was no proof. Whatever Bucky had done to Clint had taken away all evidence of Penny’s actions.

  


And  _ Penny _ -

  


“Is she going to be okay?”

  


Bucky scowled and tilted his head to the side and examined Clint again.

  


“You sure you don’t smell lemons?” he asked.

  


“No, I don’t smell lemons. Is she going to be okay?”

  


“She’ll go on trial. If she’s who Steve thinks she is, then you aren’t her first victim. So-”

  


“She said she’d never done it before. A human sacrifice.”

  


Bucky rubbed one hand over his face.

  


“Are you- are you actually sitting here trying to defend the same girl who just tried to kill you, and who you just wanted to report for attempted murder?”

  


“I-” Clint realized, all at once, just what a fucking idiot he was. 

  


Bucky nodded.

  


“Right. So. Here’s the deal. Tonight was all just a bad dream. We’ll keep her away from you, won’t let her hurt any nulls again and-”

  


“What’s a null?”

  


“You’re a null. People like you - people who don’t have magic. You’re nulls.”

  


“So, what are you? A wizard?”

  


“No. I’m not a wizard. This isn’t Harry Potter.”

  


Bucky got to his feet, still not having answered Clint’s question. He reached into his other back pocket and pulled out a card. He handed it to Clint.

  


One side said his name - Bucky Barnes - and had a phone number. The other side was just matte black paper.

  


“If she shows back up, or if you start to smell lemons, give me a call, okay?”

  


Clint looked from the card to the man.

  


“I’m a bartender. So I smell lemons a lot.”

  


Bucky’s lips twisted, as if he was trying to decide whether or not to smile or frown.

  


“If you smell lemons in a non-lemon environment, give me a call.”

  


“What’s it mean, me smelling lemons?”

  


“Not much.” Bucky patted Clint’s hair, the gesture both irritating and also weirdly affectionate. “Just that your body is hosting a demon spawn and you’ll need an exorcism.”

  


With those wonderfully comforting last words, Bucky walked towards the blasted-open door, snapped his metal fingers and  _ magically _ the door righted itself.

  


Bucky gave Clint one last smirk and a sloppy salute, but then closed the door and walked out of Clint’s life.

  


-o-

  
  


Clint liked to think he was at least  _ kind of _ observant. He had, after all, spent six years as a Marine sniper, and he had been damn good at his job before getting blown up and losing his hearing. 

  


So, having missed the fact that his  _ girlfriend _ was a hedge witch - whatever that meant - hit him kind of hard.

  


Hard enough that Clint spiralled, just a bit, and spent a lot of time on the internet looking up magic and mythology, and basically scaring the shit out of himself and ensuring no more sleeping without nightmares for perhaps the rest of his life.

  


He started to look around more, at work and on his walks home. Looking for - hell, he wasn’t even sure. Werewolves? Witches? Faeries?

  


It felt stupid, but the memory of Penny carving into his chest meant that feeling stupid wasn’t at the top of Clint’s list of things to worry about.

  


Which was why he really, really,  _ really _ should have seen it coming.

  


It was four thirty on a Sunday morning, after a long and particularly raucous Saturday night at the bar, and the only thing on Clint’s mind as he walked home was collapsing into his bed and sleeping for  _ forever _ because he didn’t work that night.

  


He clocked the cute redheaded girl in a black leather jacket as he walked past her, but he was tired, and it was almost  _ dawn, _ and really, not the time to be thinking of pick-up lines. So he nodded at her and kept walking.

  


Two blocks later, he felt a cold, strong hand slip into his and looked down to see the girl. The girl who had somehow followed him and come up to his side without Clint noticing, and  _ what the fuck _ ? Had he really slipped that much in the last three years? Even with his hearing aids turned off, Clint usually had better situational awareness than this.

  


The girl tugged Clint towards an alley, and he dug his heels in.

  


“No thanks,” Clint said. He tried to shake her off, but her grip was shockingly strong.

  


She muttered something that he didn’t catch at all, so Clint adjusted his hearing aids.

  


“Sorry, what was that?”

  


“I need you,” she hissed, face contorted into a painful grimace.

  


“Um-”

  


And then she dragged him into the alley and pushed him against a rough, brick wall hard enough that Clint’s head impacted with a painful snap.

  


“Ow. Look, why don’t we- Whoa! Whoa! What the fuck?”

  


The girl had her hands on Clint’s shoulders, holding him in place with what looked like zero effort despite the fact that he had to have at least seventy pounds and six inches on her. 

  


She opened her mouth, but instead of speaking, she  _ hissed _ at him.

  


Clint noticed her teeth.

  


Specifically, her very sharp, elongated cuspids.

  


“What- Oh, jesus fuck,  _ no _ ,” Clint groaned.

  


The girl completely ignored him. Or, rather, she completely ignored his words.

  


Instead, she used one hand to jerk Clint’s neck to the side, exposing his throat to her.

  


“Please don’t be a vampire,” Clint moaned. 

  


She didn’t respond to his plea except to bite into his throat.

  


The pain was sharp and blinding, and Clint was shocked into a gasp.

  


He wanted to shout, but his throat felt tight and frozen from pain and fear.

  


Clint lifted his hands and gripped her shoulders. He wanted to push her away, wanted to get her  _ off _ of him but it felt like he was slapping at a brick wall.

  


She was totally unaffected by his efforts to free himself.

  


“Please,” he groaned. “Please don’t kill me. I just- Fucking hell. Please don’t kill me.”

  


The girl jerked away from him, pulling her teeth out of his skin and scrambling backwards until she was crouched against the opposite wall of the alley.

  


Clint sucked in a deep, painful breath, and pressed a hand to his neck.

  


It felt wet and warm and ragged and  _ gross, _ and he had to fight the urge to vomit.

  


The girl, meanwhile, stared at him with bloody lips and wide green eyes full of fear.

  


“S’okay,” Clint assured her. “I’m fine. It’s okay. We’re all good.”

  


She didn’t look like she believed him. Which was fair, because Clint wasn’t sure he believed himself.

  


“I don’t want this,” the girl said, voice low and broken. “I don’t  _ want _ this.”

  


“Same,” he said. 

  


“What do I do?” she asked him. “I don’t want this. How do I stop this? What do I do?”

  


As if  _ Clint _ knew? As if Clint had any fucking idea what to do in this situation? With a vampire and-

  


Oh.

  


He fumbled in his pocket for his phone.

  


Scrolling through the contacts, he found  _ Bucky Barnes _ and pressed the call button.

  


Across the alley, the girl regarded him with anxious eyes, looking between the phone and the mouth of the alley as if she was thinking of running.

  


“I’m calling a friend,” Clint lied. “He can help us.” He hoped that part wasn’t a lie at least.

  


After a few rings, the line picked up.

  


“What?” Bucky growled into the phone, voice rough with sleep.

  


“Uh. Hi. This is Clint. I need your help.”

  


“Who?”

  


Right. They hadn’t ever gotten around to introductions.

  


“They guy with the abs? My girlfriend tried to kill me?”

  


“Hot dumb guy. Yeah. I remember you. Fuck. Do you smell lemons?”

  


“ _ No _ . No, I don’t smell any fucking lemons. Christ, is that something I’m going to have to worry about for the rest of my life?”

  


“Maybe.”

  


“Great. Fucking awesome. Actually, uh, I’ve got a non-lemon-smelling situation on my hands. I made a new friend.”

  


Bucky muttered something that sounded suspiciously like  _ fucking idiot _ .

  


“Anyway, she’s a vampire and we’re kind of both freaking out and could use, you know, some help.”

  


“It’s twenty minutes until sunrise.” Bucky sounded much more alert now.

  


“Uh, sure.”

  


“Clint. Your vampire friend will catch on fire in direct sunlight. Are you somewhere dark and safe?”

  


“No, we’re in an alley. We, uh, you know, just kind of ran into each other and-”

  


“And she bit you, didn’t she?”

  


“Only a little bit. I asked her not to kill me and she let go, but now we, you know, don’t know what to do.”

  


Bucky muttered again, but Clint couldn’t catch any of it.

  


“Where are you?” Bucky asked.

  


“Um…” Clint peered out of the alley, trying to figure out what storefront was across the way. “On Lewis Ave. Across from Novato’s Grocery. In Bed-Stuy. About a quarter-mile from my apartment.”

  


“Any chance you can get to your apartment in the next twenty minutes? It’s going to take me longer than that to get to you.”

  


“I- Sure?” Clint didn’t feel great, at  _ all _ , but what choice did he have?

  


“How much blood have you lost?”

  


“Dunno. She wasn’t using a syringe to remove it, you know.”

  


Another muttered growl.

  


“Just. Try?” Bucky sounded a little less angry.

  


“Sure. Sure. I can try.”

  


Clint pushed himself up to his feet, feeling deeply unsteady.

  


Across the alley, the girl watched him.

  


“We gotta get you out of here,” Clint tried to explain. “Gonna go back to my place. Okay?”

  


The girl warily rose to her feet.

  


“Why?” she asked him.

  


“Why?” Clint repeated, feeling like he was missing something. “Oh. Sun. You’ll, you know - do you know?”

  


She shook her head.

  


“She doesn’t seem to really know a lot about being a vampire,” Clint said into the phone.

  


“Ask her when she was made,” Bucky instructed.

  


“Uh… when were you made?” Clint asked her.

  


She scowled at him.

  


“What does that mean?” she asked.

  


“Yeah, she doesn’t-”

  


“You don’t have time to play twenty questions,” Bucky interrupted. “Tell her that she needs to get out of the sun or she’s going to die.”

  


Clint dutifully repeated the words.

  


The girl bit her lip and looked towards the still-dark sky.

  


“Really?” she asked.

  


“Okay. Gotta go,” Clint decided, and hung up the phone despite Bucky’s immediate protests.

  


The girl was still staring at the sky.

  


“Hey,” Clint hobbled towards her. His whole body ached, pain radiating from his neck to the rest of him in painful waves. “Hey, what’s your name, kid?”

  


“Natalia,” she answered, gave flicking towards him in concern.

  


“Cool. I’m Clint. So, Nat, here’s the deal. You’re not dying here today, okay? Obviously, some fucked-up shit has happened, and we’ll figure that out. But right now, we really gotta get you inside, okay?”

  


She frowned and started to shake her head.

  


“I’m a monster.” She rubbed her lips, where Clint’s blood had started to dry against her skin. “I’m a  _ monster _ .”

  


“Sure, but you didn’t kill me. Not all monsters are bad, you know?”

  


She looked at Clint like he was an idiot.

  


“The definition of a monster is that it’s bad,” she said.

  


“Maybe that’s  _ your _ definition,” Clint shrugged, and immediately regretted it. “Look. Can we please argue about the definition of a monster on the way to my apartment?”

  


Once again, Natalia looked towards the sky.

  


“Fine! Fine,” Clint snapped. “You want to burn yourself up, that’s cool, but at least help me back to my place so I don’t die from blood loss? I have a friend coming to help. Your life is your own, but I really, really don’t want to die in this alley, okay?”

  


The plea earned Clint her full attention.

  


She looked over him critically, and then sighed.

  


“I’ll help you home,” she said.

  


“Thanks.”

  


It was painful, slow going. Clint had one arm draped over her shoulders, and each step felt like he was manipulating some kind of Gumby version of himself instead of actually moving his feet.

  


He had no idea how long it took, but every time he looked towards the sky, he felt like he could make out a sliver of pink or orange, and it filled him with nausea and fear.

  


Finally, somehow, they made it to his apartment building. 

  


Natalia helped him up the stairs, and by the time they reached the third floor, daylight was starting to filter through the windows on the east side of the stairwell.

  


Clint tried to block Natalia from it with his body, but just as they reached his floor, a golden line fell across one of her pale hands.

  


She howled in pain and dropped Clint’s arm. He lost his balance and fell, taking her with him, and they crashed to the stairs, falling and rolling down to the landing below.

  


Natalia cried out as more light hit her, and she tried to curl up into a ball. Clint wrapped himself around her, trying to cover her smaller body with his own.

  


He could feel his pulse thrumming heavily and erratically, and he didn’t need to touch his neck to know he was bleeding again.

  


Fuck.

  


He was going to die here.

  


They  _ both _ were.

  


What a shitty fucking way to go.

  


If only-

  


“For fuck’s sake.”

  


Clint managed to open his eyes and saw Bucky standing over them, an angry scowl on his face.

  


“Hey.” Clint tried to smile at him.

  


It felt more like a grimace.

  


“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Bucky growled.

  


“You’re lucky I’m cute,” Clint slurred back at him.

  


\--------

  


He must have passed out.

  


When he opened his eyes again, Clint was laying in his bed, and while his entire body ached, he wasn’t in acute pain anymore.

  


Clint groaned and reached towards his neck.

  


Had it all been a dream and-

  


His fingers felt the jagged edges of skin where Natalia had bitten him.

  


“Don’t mess with it.”

  


Clint looked up at the order and saw Bucky sitting on the floor, back to the wall, long legs crossed and stretched out in front of him.

  


Frowning, Clint pulled his hand away and rolled his head towards the windows.

  


He had blackout curtains over them, considering the hours he kept, but even so, light usually managed to filter past the edges.

  


Judging from the dark amber painting the wall beside the windows, Clint guessed it was late afternoon.

  


“What time?” he asked anyway.

  


“Almost six. Another two and a half hours until sunset.”

  


“You’ve been here all day?” Clint asked, and turned back to look at Bucky.

  


The man shrugged.

  


“My job. Couldn’t leave a freshly-made vampire alone without her maker or a coven and…” he gestured at Clint. “Had to make sure you didn’t die either.”

  


“Did you heal me again?”

  


“No. You weren’t lucid enough for me to ask your permission.”

  


“You didn’t ask for it last time,” Clint had to point out.

  


Bucky’s lips twisted into a smirk.

  


“Sure, but last time you were gonna die, and last time there wasn’t the whole human servant bond thing to consider.”

  


“The  _ what _ ?”

  


“Your vampire friend marked you.”

  


“You mean she bit me.”

  


“Yeah. But she didn’t kill you.”

  


“I asked her not to.”

  


Bucky raised his eyebrows.

  


“That worked?”

  


Clint shrugged. It clearly had, since they were having this conversation.

  


“Huh.” Bucky seemed to consider that for a moment, but then he shook his head. “Anyway. She left you alive, with her mark. Which means that come sunset, you two are bonded together.  _ If _ that’s what you want.”

  


“I still don’t understand,” Clint admitted.

  


“So, if I heal you, that mark goes away and you go back to being a normal null with really shitty luck. If we leave the mark, and your friend gives you some of her blood when she wakes up, that makes you her human servant.”

  


“And what the fuck is a human servant? Is this another lemon-smelling situation?”

  


Bucky huffed a laugh.

  


“No. This has nothing to do with smelling lemons. It basically… You two would be connected. You could feel a little bit of what she feels, and she’d feel some of what you feel. You’d be stronger, faster, live longer, and you would be able to let her feed from you without dying.”

  


“Is that a thing? People dying when vampires feed from them?”

  


Bucky nodded, expression grim.

  


“Yeah. A vampire can’t really sustain themselves on less than an entire body’s worth of blood.”

  


“So, how is that different with their servant? Do I start producing extra blood? Because where would that even  _ go _ ? And-”

  


Bucky held up a hand.

  


“I have no idea. No one does. It’s just… one of those things. Magic.”

  


“Huh.”

  


Bucky was silent for several minutes, letting Clint mull over all of  _ that _ in his head.

  


“So, you want me to heal you, or do you want to keep the marks?”

  


“What happens if you don’t heal me and she doesn’t give me some of her blood?”

  


“Vampirism is a disease,” Bucky said, voice and face very neutral. “Her blood would act as… not really an antidote, but sort of. It would keep you from turning. Without it, you would become a vampire.”

  


Well, that fucking sucked.

  


Clint let out a shaky breath, tried to make it into a laugh, and failed miserably.

  


“So, I should let you heal me, for sure.”

  


“It would be the safest thing to do,” Bucky agreed.

  


“Then why didn’t you just do it?”

  


“Because your vampire is suicidal, and if she had a disaster human servant like you, she probably wouldn’t be so eager to fling herself through the nearest window.”

  


Clint realized that he hadn’t actually asked about her.

  


He felt guilt ripple through him.

  


“Is she okay?”

  


Bucky shrugged again, and jerked a thumb towards the bathroom.

  


“I had to secure her in the tub. She’s feisty.”

  


“What happened to her? She-”

  


“Freshly turned,” Bucky sighed, and once again rubbed at his face. “We’ve seen a lot of this lately. There’s some asshole out there making vampires but not bothering to take care of them. Last week, we scraped up twelve piles of ash that used to be baby vampires.” Bucky shook his head. “She was pretty out of it - she got enough blood from you not to die, but not enough to really be healthy - so she couldn’t tell me much.”

  


“So, you want me to manipulate her into this… human servant bond thing?”

  


“Did I say that?” Bucky pulled on an expression that looked innocent.

  


Clint glared at him.

  


“It’s your life, buddy. Safest thing to do would be to let me heal you.”

  


Clint groaned.

  


“I hate you.”

  


Bucky grinned.

  


“Come on. Get your ass out of bed, and let’s get you hydrated and feed you so that you’ll be ready to talk her into this in a few hours.”

  


-o-

  


Being Natalia’s human servant didn’t change Clint’s life all that much, except for the fact that he now had a vampire as a roommate.

  


But aside from that  _ huge _ change, Clint’s life continued on in the same way it had before. He got home from work close to dawn, sat on the couch and let Natalia feed from him before they both went to bed - her in the guest room closet and Clint in his bed. Around noon, Clint dragged himself out of bed, ate, went to the gym, came back to the apartment and did work for his online classes, ate again, and then went to work. He didn’t really know what Natalia did after sunset even a month into their impossible-to-describe relationship. Sometimes, she stopped by the bar, but usually Clint didn’t see her until she fed from him back in the apartment. Clint didn’t work every night, but even then, he didn’t see her until the early-morning hours. It felt a lot like they were two strangers who occasionally bumped into each other. And shared blood.

  


Clint was pretty sure she was pissed at him for the whole manipulating her into not killing herself thing - fun fact about human servants, if their vampires died, so did they - and he couldn’t really blame her for that. Then again, he didn’t want her to die.

  


In the three months since Penny had tried to kill him, Clint hadn’t felt all that interested in dating again, and with his new roommate, he really wasn’t eager to try it out. He didn’t know how he could possibly explain Natalia’s presence in his apartment  _ or _ her drinking his blood to anyone else.

  


So, Clint felt a little lonely, but he was alive and Natalia was alive and, really, that was enough to get by on.

  


It was.

  


Until Kate insisted he had been alone for too long and it was time to get ‘back into the game’, and started to set him up on dates and drag him out to clubs and bars with her when their nights off coincided.

  


Kate was a good kid. Several years younger than Clint, smart and snarky and cute. She was bartending to pay for college - well, to pay for some of her expenses because she was apparently very smart and had a great scholarship to NYU - and  _ why _ she wanted to waste her time dragging Clint’s sad, thirty-year-old ass out to have fun was beyond him.

  


Still, he went along with her plans. She was, after all, the only friend he really had these days.

  


Which was a hell of a depressing thought. Especially since he had someone  _ living  _ with him.

  


Thursday night was Kate’s favorite night to go out dancing - she didn’t have any Friday morning classes, and both she and Clint hated working the Thursday night shift so they usually foisted it off on Bobbi - and Clint now knew way more than he had ever wanted to about the kind of music and ‘dancing’ kids got up to these days.

  


This particular Thursday, Kate dragged him to some bird-themed, vegan cocktail bar and hipster lounge because  _ she _ had a date and wanted Clint as her wingman. 

  


Kate’s date was, she claimed, so far out of her league it was pathetic, and she needed Clint for the moral support. And also to prove that she, Kate, wasn’t actually the biggest human disaster on the planet.

  


Clint could understand that, and after being introduced to America Chavez, the girl of Kate’s literal dreams if the twenty-minute walk to the club and Kate’s nonstop monologue was to be believed, he could even get behind it.

  


America and Kate were clearly crazy about each other, though, so Clint got to be on the periphery of their little group and tried his best not to feel like a creepy old guy - but they were all  _ eight years _ younger than him, if not more, and Clint had never felt more out of place in his life.

  


Until, of course, everything went to shit, and Clint found himself in very familiar territory.

  


One minute, everyone was enjoying their vegan cocktails and Kate and America were undressing each other with their eyes, and the next minute, the  _ lounge _ was filled with painfully-bright pink light and a resounding boom that left Clint deafened.

  


A red-haired woman prowled through the crowd, everyone moving away from her as if pushed by some unseen hand, until she stopped in front of a shaved-headed bartender wearing an actual fucking monocle.

  


“Where is my brother?” she demanded.

  


The monocled guy glared at her.

  


She glared back.

  


And then sparks of bright light were dancing between them, pink tendrils curling around the woman’s hands and green from the guy’s. They curled together, wrapping around them while everyone else in the lounge lost their shit - screaming, running, crying - until the light exploded.

  


Everything flashed with heat and light, and Clint was knocked off his feet by the explosion.

  


He scrambled for cover, looking for Kate and at the same time digging into his pocket for his phone.

  


Kate and America were crouched under a table, holding each other, looking terrified but unharmed.

  


“Clint,” Bucky answered on the second ring.

  


“Hey, Bucky. You busy?”

  


Bucky groaned.

  


“What the fuck have you gotten yourself into this time?”

  


“Dunno, actually. I’m not bleeding, though. Not yet.”

  


“Keep it that way this time, will you? Where are you, and what’s happening?”

  


Clint gave him the address, and then summarized the events thus far.

  


He had to stop halfway through, however, when the woman and the bartender suddenly rolled through the debris near his feet, hissing at each other and shooting off more tendrils of colored light at each other.

  


“Strucker,” Bucky concluded. “We’ve been looking for him.”

  


“And her?”

  


“No clue. Stay safe. Oh - your vampire will probably show up when she feels your distress. Don’t let her die. Or you’ll die too.”

  


Bucky hung up, and Clint let himself glare at the phone for a moment before putting it back into his pocket.

  


Sure enough - a moment later, Natalia burst into the club.

  


“Clint?” she shouted.

  


“I’m fine!” he shouted back.

  


She seemed to hone in on his voice, green eyes finding him in the chaos. She glared at him, assessing, but then nodded, and her attention turned towards Strucker and the woman, still brawling.

  


It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to be careful, but before he could even open his mouth to start to speak, Natalia dove into the fight.

  


And Clint- Clint couldn’t just  _ hide _ while she was fighting.

  


So he joined in too.

  


\-----

  


He must have passed out.

  


When he came to, Clint was wrapped in a blanket and his head was pillowed against something firm and soft. Someone was running their fingers through his hair, and it took everything in him not to arch into that touch.

  


Penny used to do that to him. Clint had loved it when she did.

  


He made himself roll over enough to look up.

  


Not Penny.

  


Natalia.

  


“Hey,” he croaked.

  


She arched one delicate eyebrow at him.

  


“You almost died.” She said it like an accusation.

  


“I didn’t try to?”

  


She snorted.

  


“You’re impossible,” she muttered. But she hadn’t stopped petting him.

  


Clint settled back onto her lap and looked around.

  


They were still in the club, but it had been deserted. Now, it was just a mess of broken chairs and overturned tables, scraps of fabric and shards of glass.

  


“Kate?” Clint suddenly remembered.

  


“Your friend? She’s fine. Only two nulls were hurt, and they’re being taken care of.”

  


“What about- the whoever they were?” Clint asked.

  


“He awake?”

  


Clint looked up at the sound of a familiar voice.

  


Bucky stood over them, arms crossed over his chest.

  


Clint grinned up at him.

  


Bucky rolled his eyes and dropped down into a crouch beside them.

  


“You got a thing for redheads, or a thing for trouble?” Bucky asked.

  


“I-”

  


Clint caught himself.

  


Shit. They  _ had _ all been redheads.

  


“I think it’s a thing for trouble,” Natalia mused. “I’ve found he’s most often attracted to dark-haired men.”

  


Bucky and Natalia exchanged a glance over Clint’s head, and Clint felt himself flush. 

  


How did she even  _ know _ that?

  


“Next time you call me,” Bucky said, his lips curving into a smirk, “it better be to ask me out on a date.”

  


-o-

  
  


  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> \----------  
> \----------
> 
> And everyone lived happily ever after.
> 
> I’m too sick to write more I’m so so sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> The whole thing with the lemons was going to resolve with Clint getting possessed by Loki. But, again. Sickness.


End file.
